Delusions
by Codename Jellybean
Summary: All you want to do is to stop feeling like you're drowning -drowning in blood, water, words, stares, yourself- but there are shadows that pry your eyes open at night and a group of sort-of-friends more broken than you are who can only try to fix you. Or: After the War, a group of friends try to forget what hells they went through.
1. Chapter 1

**iiiiit's CJ, back from a long vacation!**

 **Basically, this is Neville, Harry, Padma, Ginny, Ron, Hermione,Blaise, and Cho (our MC), about eight months after the War, trying to recover. Since they were all key figures in the War, they've been given a secure apartment which is Apparate-only, where they live to keep out of the press as much as possible.**

 **This fic'll be dealing with a lot of different things, including depression, insomnia, self harm, PTSD, GAD, and SAD...as well as a lot of gendersexualityfucked things, because that's what's on my mind right now. For all of you who don't know, I'd be so so happy if y'all referred to me with ei/eir pronouns, because I found out that I'm not a girl, but also not a guy, but still kind of identify as a girl and honestly I don't know. Hahaha I'm a mess. (Also, if my pronouns make you uncomfortable, she/her is totally fi** **ne, too).**

 **Warnings: Mental illness, panic attacks, all of the shit that comes with mental illness, also, I don't have GAD, or PTSD, I don't technically self harm, and I'm not transgender, so I might write these guys badly... Oh, and gendersexualityfuckery.**

 **xxCJxx**

 **.oOo.**

You're used to cramped living quarters, but you're not used to actually having to _sleep_ in them, because you never slept last year, not at night, anyway. So you're staring at the ceiling, listening to Ginny's whistling breath that fills your ears and grates your skin raw.

The room is dark.

There are no windows, because the paparazzi could get in, or worse.

You don't want to think about the 'or worse', but suddenly the shadows creeping up the walls are actually the Carrows, arms outstretched, leering.

Your eyelids are heavy, loaded down with the fatigue that comes from four sleepless, restless nights in a row, but fearful, tall shadows pry them open again, and all you can do is toss and turn in your tangle of sweat-soaked blankets until everyone else wakes up.

 **.oOo.**

Today was a good day.

Harry went grocery shopping, and didn't have a panic attack after the journalists crowded him like a pack of hungry wolves. Instead, you two made salad together in the small kitchen, while Hermione sorted out everyone's potions by hand ("My parents would never approve of magic-monitored medicine, they'd turn over in their graves!") at the kitchen table next to them.

Today was a good day.

Hermione lent you a book about Astrology that you devoured, curled up in an armchair, stomach full after two potions and a sandwich. When you returned it, she smiled, and as she took the it from your hands, her pinky brushed yours, and a strange spark blossomed from your finger into your bloodstream. You couldn't breathe, but it was in a good way. A peaceful way.

Today was a good day.

So why can't you sleep?

There are dark circles, purple bruises embedded in your face, and it hurts to blink, but no matter how hard you press your eyes shut, Ginny's breath worms its way through your eyelashes and into your mind.

Your breaths are full, deep. Inhale, exhale. It takes so much effort to consciously think this. When did breathing become so much work?

You spend the rest of the night trying to not forget to breathe.

 **.oOo.**

In the room next to you, there lies a traitor.

Is he a traitor?

You remember him, one of the six Asians at Hogwarts, and the only one in Slytherin. (Well, he's half-and-half, but it's all the same). He was friends with Malfoy, wasn't he? And Malfoy was a Death Eater, so he probably was, too, and now he's in the room next to your own, plotting heaven-knows-what, and you could _die_ because that damn Neville Longbottom is too trusting.

("I found him on the street," Neville said, putting an arm around a decidedly bedraggled Blaise Zabini. "And I got permission from Shacklebolt himself to let him stay here for as long as possible." He added as Padma opened her mouth.

"See, I understand why she's here," Ron said, nodding at you, "and I see why she's here - a jerk of his head towards Padma- but why him? He's a bloody Death Eater!"

"Not...not really," Blaise said, his voice managing to be hoarse and wet at the same time.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked, turning towards him.

Blaise blushed. Harry had been staring at him, unblinking, for several seconds. "He's not lying," Harry said. "I can't tell what he was doing, because my Legilimency is pretty shoddy, but he definitely was on our side."

"So he's in?" Ginny asked.

Everybody nodded their assent.

"What do you mean, you understand why I'm here?" Padma bristled, shoving Ron.

As Blaise sat down awkwardly on the edge of the couch, you couldn't help but cross your arms protectively around yourself.)

There's no way you're getting any sleep tonight. Maybe if you trusted Harry's Occlumency skills more, but for now, another sleepless night.

The days are starting to blend together.

 **.oOo.**

You give up going to bed, at a certain point.

Ron's awake, he's always awake at night ("Somebody has to stand guard! What if...") and he nods when you tiptoe into the kitchen and pour yourself a cup of milk.

You don't speak.

He doesn't speak.

But it's nice to be awake with someone else.

 **.oOo.**

You don't speak.

He doesn't speak.

But a week or so later, he begins leaving a cup of milk out for you.

 **.oOo.**

"Has Hermione been taking her potions in the morning?" Ron asks, and you nearly jump at the sudden sound.

But he knows to keep his voice low, level, unthreatening.

You think. Has she? ("I already took them before you woke up." "Oh, I'll take them after I finish writing this letter!")

"I...I don't know." Your voice withers from misuse. You try to remember the last time she took her morning potions with the rest of you, but all you remember is her hunched over the kitchen table, counting out milliliters of doses for everyone else.

"I just worry about her, you know?" He says. "Even though we split up and shit, she's still one of my best mates, and... I don't think she wants me to tell you this, but I think she's gone through this before. This whole bloody not eating thing."

( "Cho, you have to eat breakfast, it's the most important meal of the day!" Hermione said.

"I used to wake up before sunrise to eat breakfast with Parvati, before-" Padma began, before abruptly cutting herself off. Nobody knew what had happened to the twins when they had fled Hogwarts, but something had happened in Mumbai that left Parvati dead and Padma insatiably angry.

"Eggs have nutrients! And- well, at least have some fruit?" Hermione continued, laying a gentle hand on Padma's shoulder.

But you shook your head no, and your tired brain rattled painfully inside your skull. A vice gripped your throat.

"Hermione, maybe you eat some first, to show her that your eggs aren't nearly as bad as your fish," Harry grinned. She turned red.

"I shouldn't have to prove to someone that food is good for them! Fine, Cho, if you want to starve yourself, then be. My. Guest." She threw the banana into the rubbish, and you wished you had eaten the damn thing, just so she dadn't upset herself.

Your stomach was full of ashes until lunch, when Hermione passed you a glass of juice and a trembling smile. )

"Will you keep an eye out on her for me? Don't tell her, she'd go after my arse, but...just watch her for a bit?"

You nod, slowly.

. **oOo**.

The next night, a soul-shuddering scream rips the silence, and grips your heart, and everything changes.


	2. Chapter 2

**CJ again, hello.**

 **Thanks to qC for the review and fav! I'll get right on it, I swear.**

 **To the eight people whose PMs I haven't replied to: it's not because I hate you, it's because I literally have no energy to do ANYTHING and it's taking a whole lot of forcing myself to write this chapter as is.**

 **ALSO: this is being written for both the Psychological!AU Competition under Anxiety, and the Read Between the Lines Challenge under** **Hermione/Cho.**

 **Reminder that this fic is centered a lot around mental illness fuckery, gendersexuality fuckery, past traumatic events fuckery...**

 **Specifically, this one has two non-explicit panic attacks and implied self harm, _please_ don't read if that will bother you. **

**Reminder that this is written by someone who doesn't self harm, who doesn't have GAD/PTSD, who isn't trans/nonbinary, and who doesn't have an eating disorder.**

 **xxCJxx**

It's not a scream so much as it is animalistic fear ripping through someone's flesh in the only way it knows how, and it sends tension pulsing through your heart faster than your heartbeat can catch up.

"Harry! Harry, breathe!" Someone's desperate voice from the room next door, which should sound crystal clear, as the walls here are almost thinner than parchment, but it seems distant...muddled...as if you're drowning, and the voice is coming from above the water.

As quick as it came, the fear rolls off, and you untangle your legs and stumble into the boy's room.

Hermione and Padma are already in there, rubbing soothing hands on trembling shoulders and running calm fingers through knotted black hair. Ron's holding a glass of water, presumably for Harry, uselessly, while Neville seems to be looking for his bag of calming herbs -"Where is it, it should be here, I always keep it here!"- but Blaise.

Slytherin, slightly padded where the others have bones and muscle, is watching from his corner. His arms and legs are folding in on himself, something shining nervously in his eyes, and you can't help but feel sorry for him, the outsider when he once was a king.

You lock eyes with Ron. "You can go," he mouths kindly.

Something compels you to crook a finger towards Blaise, questioningly. maybe it's because you remember that once, a long time ago, you were a queen, too. _Do you want to come?_ He looks helpless, like he can't untwist himself without breaking something.

You walk over to him, and peel his arms away. His skin is cold, and his arms are lifeless. He follows you like a child outside, into the kitchen, where you can still hear Harry shuddering through the aftermath of his attack.

He nods, crosses his arms again like a shield. His body is guarded, and his eyes scream for help, but you don't know how to give it, so you spend the rest of the night in silence, looking at the floor, the rubbish bin, anywhere but his eyes.

 **.oOo.**

All day, you've been on edge.

Tightly wound, compact and small.

Sleep doesn't elude you tonight, it throws a middle finger in your face before you even enter your bedroom.

You're in the kitchen before Ron is, milk poured but untouched.

He doesn't mention the nail-sized crescents carved pink in your wrists.

And his fingers ghost, reminiscently, over roped scars on his forearms from ages ago, back when you were falling from your throne and he was beginning to rise.

 **.oOo.**

You remember terror, blind and white, gripping your bones, but you don't remember what caused it.

You remember Ginny finding you wedged between your bed and the wall in an impossibly tight knot, but you don't remember how you got there.

There's a blanket around your shoulders and orange juice cupped between your trembling hands, and a residual tension vibrating underneath your skin.

She's returned with Harry, who gives you a sympathetic pat on your shoulder. "Congratulations, you've just had your first panic attack."

There's a grim, almost sarcastic celebration involving ice cream and orange juice ("You'll thank me later," says Ginny) on the couch.

Is it wrong that what strikes you the most about all of it, however, is Hermione's scream when she got back from Therapy, and the bone crushing hug that still lingers over your arms?

"You loved her, didn't you?" You ask Ron. It's almost three.

He looks surprised at the question. "How could I have not?"

 **.oOo.**

Knives aren't allowed, nonono, they're not, they're not!

There's a smudge of blood on the inside ankle of Blaise's trousers, and you swear you've never so much have heard a "Sectumsempra!" whispered.

But people grieve in different ways, and the angry welts and Incendios from long ago prickle sadly on your lower back.

He's been having a hard time fitting in the flat, even though all of them are puzzle pieces to different puzzles, and all of them are jagged and disoriented like him.

There's so much you wish you could say, but you won't.

You're a horrible person, a terrible person, but maybe this is what he needs.

 **.oOo.**

Who are you?

Who was Cedric Diggory, who was Terry Boot, who was Kevin Chen?

Who were the faceless men in violet robes you imagined marrying one day, under a canopy of butteflies?

Are all of these people erased, Evanesco-ed into oblivion now?

Because you swear you saw the same shine in Hermione's eyes, you felt the same warm and uncertain flutter in your chest when she offered to let you read her Top Secret manuscript for a book she's writing, as you did with those boys from Hogwarts.

"Do you ever regret breaking up?" You ask Ron. The words fall like lead weights.

He sighs, and you feel as if he thinks he's too simple a man to grasp his feelings and put them into words of suitable eloquence. "Hermione and I...we're friends in a way that I could never be friends with Harry. I dunno whether it's because she's a girl, or because we're almost polar opposites, but...I guess we confused this weird friendship thing with romance. And now... now she's becoming so self-destructive, that even if I wanted to date her, I wouldn't, because she'd only end up fucking me up with her.

He shrugs. "I'm not sure if that makes sense or if it sounds like a load of shit, but-"

"Oh no, it makes perfect sense."

"I wonder why I thought you were a soggy bitch in fifth year," he says before catching himself. "Fuck, sorry. Shouldn't have said that, Cho."

"S'okay." You wish that you were falling in love -is it love?-with him instead of Hermione.

He's a good sort.

 **Note: try to be hydrated after a panic attack please! Also rest! Being surrounded by people may or may not be beneficial, depending on who you are. Also, if you think someone is self harming, you should tell someone and not do what Cho does because what she does is a bad thing.**


End file.
